Pheidologeton diversus New colony Start

[adam james]

Hey guys just thort to let you know that the Queen died a few days ago , the soldiers slowly died untill there was one left then the queen died and a day later the last remaining soldier died aswell.

I tried my best with these ants but no good, i shall stay away from them for a long time now.

Regards

Adam

[Andie]

You give them your best m8, but sorry to hear.

I see you've had your avatar pinched aswell

[adam james]

Thanks Andie ,

Regards

Adam

[Elune]

Sorry to read that Adam ! I wish you the best of luck for your future colonies ! Hope to read from you soon again.

mfg

[adam james]

Thankyou Mfg i will try these again in a few months and yes i will get anouther colony but a diffrent species soon and will report on that.

Adam

[MajorSpud]

too sad to hear, really hoped they were gonna make it

[AntsNational]

I'm terribly sorry to hear about the colony's demise , Adam. You put a lot of effort and work into your setups and I wish you all the best of luck next time!

cheers,
Vasile

[adam james]

Hey guys thanks for the supportive comments , i will try again in a few months , Will concentrate on anouther ant species at the moment and see how i go.

Regards

Adam

[AntsNational]

Adam, what is your experience with ants? What species do you currently keep?

Cheers,
Vasi

[adam james]

Hello Vasile , my experiance is very good i have kept many species over the years , some with better success then others , I have been keeping ants since i was 16 , im now almost 26 lol , i have kept , lasius niger , lasius flavus , myrmica rubra , Wood ants i dont know what species thou. , camponotus ligniperda and herculeanus , pheidole pallidula,Pheidologeton diversus,polyrhachis dives, Atta cephalotes, Harpegnathos venator, Oecophylla smaragdina and last but not least messor barbarus

At the moment i have no ants , am awaiting a colony of harpegnatos venator to arrive that are being sent as soon as weather is warm enought.

Regards

Adam

[mtrein]

Maybe you should try some Arcomyrmex. The queen is quite small compared to Atta, but workers can get almost as big as their attine cousins, and the colonies do not get as big.

[DonDiablo]

you can make sure that the colony has more ways to decide where they live, like an aquarium/antstore basin with an ytong or plaster nest, and add sand/loam, enough to let them dig holes and nests in the sand/loam mixture, this way they got more places to decide and you keep the ytong totally wet and the sand you spray it once a day, you put a lid on top of the basin and voila the humidity will stay high and the colony can decide and transfer itself within the nest.

Do you know why she died? low humidity>?

[adam james]

Hello Dondiablo i am unsure why she died but i assume it was because she lost all her workers.

Regards

Adam

[MajorSpud]

Hello All,

accoridng to my experience Pheidologeton diversus grows best in either

1. Ytong with drilled chambers, and the chambers then filled iwth earth- top asssure some flexibility, and still you can see everything going on in the chambers

2. Sand/Loam mixture, nothing special.

I keep both of my two colonies at roughly 30 degrees ( varying in different chambers of course )

On one colony ( the one in ytong ) I have a 100% dry arena with hardened loam where they forage.
Next colony foraging area is literally on-top the next, so same humidity temperature etc as the nest.

Both colonies are doing really well.

I think the most bais cthing is always that people try to do a much to scientific / fantastic approach / setup, especially for the young colonies. The young colonies are extremely shy compared to adult ones.
Give your colonies three months to establish and you will be surprised about the activity.

In my bigger colony I do controlled breakouts ( ok, I let them go into a tube and them kill them ) every three weeks or so, for the colony would simply grow way too big otherwise. They are now having alates for ages already, and I recognize new ones almost every week - if they are bred or just continuously fed since the first batch I do not know.

The smaller colony also does extremely well, grown to a size of approx 4.000 workers in the meantime.

Pheidologeton will consume almost every food, and willbe also very resistant to minor changes in temperature once they have reached a certain size.

One thing I have recognized though:

A colony with lets say more than 5.000 workers has a constant hunger for seeds, no matter how many insects you feed. What this is related to is not known by me though.

All the bets for the future Adam!!

You will succeed!

[adam james]

Hello Major , thankyou very much for that information , it will be usefull , i will try these ants again in the future mate

Regards

Adam